Monday, 23 August 2010

The words life speaks

Life speaks.

Doesn’t it?

That is not just my fancy?

This last week or two, I have been feeling so beleaguered. In this house, that we moved into last November and had builders in until the spring, the second wave of building works is commencing. We’d finally established a sense of the household working as a community, and begun to settle down. It had begun to feel like home, calm and normal.

But today Alice’s and Hebe’s studio is being ripped apart for necessary work to be done. The boiler must be changed and the bathroom and toilet upstairs altered, and a door to the garden made in the living room downstairs. Our builder is a quiet, courteous, gentle man, and a good craftsman – and he has come to feel like a friend. Even so… we are very shy, private people, and the thought of everything upheavalling again has been unbearable. The pains have come back in my arms and I haven’t been able to settle to anything, wandering round like a lost soul feeling guilty for not applying myself to my work. I go a bit out of orbit, lose myself, feel insecure in the world (plus writing has gone manic with two books that should have been put to bed come back with further work to be done and problems to solve, and new deadlines looming. Aaaagh).

Then two things happened. A Jehovah’s witness showed up on our doorstep wanting to talk to Alice (not home) who had been kind to her. She talked to me for a while, and left me with a Bible verse: ‘Jeremiah 29.11,’ she said: ‘look up Jeremiah 29:11 in whatever Bible you read.’

Then we had a call from Grace. Alice (who’d come home) took the call. I could tell it was really important, but couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. Alice gave a little gasp and went slightly pink and had an aura of intense quiet excitement. I thought either someone had died or won the lottery. But no. Grace had found a hedgehog in her conservatory. I agree that is at least as exciting as dying and a lot more exciting than winning the lottery: I haven’t seen a hedgehog since 1995. Not even a dead one.

So we raced over there with our cameras. It had found its way in through the open conservatory door and put itself to bed in a bag of bags. She’d heard it rustling, and was just a bit inexplicably afraid of its aliveness – and anyway thought we’d like to see.

We took it out of the bag and put it in a sheltered place in the garden with a plate of catfood and a bowl of water. We took lots of photos and Grace videoed it – I think she will put the clips up on Facebook.

Hmm. A hedgehog rolled up in a tight ball against a cold wind and a difficult world. But there are kindly people who mean well and provide rescue from the inadvisable shelter of plastic bags, and offer free catfood. Life is not always as dangerous or frightening as it seems.

And Jeremiah 29:11, it turns out, says:“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

6 comments:

☺ That particular verse is the one the lady who taught Sunday school on the island for over 50 years had as her talisman. I love finding wild things sheltering in our yard. We've had roos & snakes & little birds & the occassional stray cat.

In my previous marriage, to Bernard who died, we lived out in the country in a little house on the edge of the woods, and it was a bit like the Disney film of Snow White for involvement with wild animals and birds! And Bernard's son found a turkey hiding out in his garden at Christmastime when the turkey mass slaughter happens. It was safe there :0)

Subscribe To Kindred of the Quiet Way

An Inspiration

‘Let us pass through your country. We will stay on the main road; we will not turn aside to the right or to the left. Sell us food to eat and water to drink for their price in silver. Only let us pass through on foot until we cross the Jordan into the land the Lord our God is giving us.’

(Deuteronomy 2.27-28, 29b NIV UK)

To get in touch with Pen Wilcock

If you would like to communicate with me personally, you can do so by leaving a comment on this blog giving your email address. I will delete the comment (I will never publish a comment containing your contact details) and get in touch with you so you then have my email address.

All comments left here come to me at my regular email address, and I read each one before publishing it; there is no danger of a private message being published by an automated system.

Don't worry if you don't hear straight away after sending a comment. I check my emails most days as I'm online researching as I write books, but I do go away sometimes!

God bless you. I will have prayed for you if you read here, even if I do not know your name. May you walk in the way of blessing. May the light of Christ be your joy and your guide.

Pen

Search This Blog

Taking The Tide Of Love

A love story of the Plain people by Penelope Wilcock - an online novella.

The Hawk and the Dove vol.1

new edition of Feb 2015

The Wounds of God

Vol 2 of the Hawk & the Dove series new edition

The Long Fall

Vol 3 of The Hawk & the Dove series new edition

The Hardest Thing To Do

Vol 4 of The Hawk & the Dove series new edition

The Hour Before Dawn

Vol 5 of The Hawk and the Dove new edition

Remember Me

Vol 6 of The Hawk and the Dove new edition

The Breath of Peace

Vol 7 of The Hawk and the Dove new edition

The Beautiful Thread

Vol 8 of The Hawk and the Dove series

A Day And A Life

9th and final volume of The Hawk and the Dove series

.

This is good for groups or personal devotions

A Lent book

Online reviewer from CLC bookshops says: 'This is perhaps the most “off the wall “ Lent book I have seen for awhile.'